Even I’m concerned about Chris Grayling’s proposals for criminal legal aid. When the government announced cuts to civil legal aid, I broadly backed them, in contrast to most lawyers. Now, the government’s proposing some further cuts to civil legal aid as well as major changes to the criminal legal aid system most dramatically, a move to competitive tendering of publicly-funded criminal defence work.
It’s important to note that there are a series of proposals here, many of which I basically accept or at least don’t oppose. Anyone writing about public spending has to take seriously the UK’s public spending deficit, and accept that there must be public spending cuts. Any other view is unreal. Even if you think the coalition is causing economic harm by the timing and depth of its cuts and the rhetoric it has used about them, the need to make cuts is unavoidable. I was interested that Ed Balls this week proposed cutting the winter fuel payment to better-off pensioners. I accept the need for cuts and for further ‘tough choices’, even if Labour gets in in two years, and believe the impact should fall as far as possible on the better off.
